


A Second Better

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: The Other Side Of The Coin [2]
Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:51:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia’s second chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Second Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annariel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/gifts).



> Belatedly, for Annariel’s birthday. I hope you like it, hon. :) Irritatingly, although Persuasion is about second chances – they are everywhere, seriously – this is never explicitly discussed in the text, so the only remotely apposite quote I could find was from Mansfield Park, of all books. Either way, my apologies are due to Jane Austen. Also to any readers who dislike Jane Austen, as this is roughly as heavy on the Austen as Stars, Hide Thy Fires was on the Shakespeare. This is, in a sense, a follow-on to Stars, Hide Thy Fires, and it may make more sense if you’ve read that. It will definitely help if you’ve read Sparks Fly Upwards. Either way, Luka beta’d this for me.
> 
>  
> 
> …if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better... – Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

            Claudia’s staring out of the window of her bedroom without seeing, and a book is on her lap, half-closed, her thumb dividing the pages. There’s a white stick beside her on the armchair, falling between the cushions where she can’t see it, and the tattered Jane Austen compendium is poised to open at _Persuasion_.

 

            Claudia has always read Jane Austen for pleasure and comfort, since she was fourteen. At first, she liked _Sense and Sensibility_ best, passionately identifying with Marianne, and then more coolly seeing herself in Elinor. When she joined the anomaly project, she thought that Helen Cutter made a fine Lucy Steele to Nick’s Edward Ferrars, and the better she got to know Nick the more she understood that the comparison was accurate. Helen, sneaking and conniving and smarter than the narrative ever gave her credit for; Nick, well-meaning, stubborn but easily led, with as many fine qualities as he had blind spots.  And herself, Elinor: faithful and fooled, with a poker face to beat the best of them. Then Nick had disappeared through an anomaly, and Tom Ryan had come back through the same anomaly a different man, and Claudia had stopped reading for a long time, unable to bear even the weight of her favourite book. When she finally came back to Austen, she began to find _Sense and Sensibility_ too shallow, too neat, and was drawn to _Persuasion_.

 

             It’s no coincidence, Claudia thinks, that _Persuasion_ is about second chances.

 

            It’s also about the autumn, which is appropriate, and which is why Claudia felt driven to take it up today, this Saturday morning in October with the frail leaves turning gold about her. A year ago today, Liz Lester blundered through an anomaly and left her muddy footprints all over Claudia’s painstakingly reconstructed life. Every time Claudia blinks, she sees that strange girl’s thin face, scarred and level-headed, old-eyed, painfully sensible and a little too wild. Her exhaustion; her strength, and her fragility. Her willingness to adapt, and the clarity with which Claudia sees how much it must have cost her. Her sheer, bloody-minded refusal to give up or give in, and her clever hands for weapons and fighting.

 

            The three months Liz spent with Claudia and Tom, living as Lisa, slipping almost seamlessly into her role and covering her tracks with sarcasm and pragmatism, were a second chance in some ways but not others. They promised Tom a way back home to the timeline he was born in that Tom wouldn’t take, and that was a true second chance, Claudia knows. Equally, she knows that James Lester’s second chance at having a daughter was a false one, and he was wise not to take it, even though Claudia has several tyrannosaur-sized bones to pick with the way he went about it.

 

            Claudia was sorry to see Liz go. She had become accustomed to Liz’s presence, to her cooking and cursing, to the way she filled the house with life. Grumpy, occasionally distraught life, but Claudia had liked having her around. She had seen, in the way Liz interacted with Tom, flashes of something that might be in twenty years’ time. Oh, Claudia was never going to be Liz’s mother, but she likes to think that she had made it to respected older sister, and that with time, she might have made it to the status of favoured aunt. Claudia certainly loves Liz as much as any of her nieces – a piece of information she will not be sharing with her sister Minerva, now or at any time in the future.

 

            The wind whistles down the street. Liz is gone, and she has contrived to leave as much chaos in the backwash of her departure as she did in the wake of her arrival. Claudia wouldn’t like to be James Lester when young Jamie works out who the girl ‘Lisa’ he met was. And Claudia still can’t quite believe that Tom asked her to marry him less than a week after Liz left; it came as something of a shock.

 

            Claudia certainly does not believe that she dared him to propose the very morning that Liz left, but then, it was very, very early, and it’s possible she said something. She definitely said yes when he asked, anyway.

 

            She hadn’t thought, before, that he would ask. His first marriage had gone down in flames, which would put anyone off. And she’d been fine with that; she was more than happy to build a future without a marriage certificate. (“Very modern,” Minerva teased her, back then.)  She could even steel herself to entertain the idea that he might leave her – whether by his own choice or not. His career doesn’t go easy on him.

 

            But she can’t imagine a future without him, now. She toys with the ring on her finger, and the book falls shut. She’s his second chance at being happy. When she thinks of Nick, she thinks that maybe he’s her second chance, too.

 

            Claudia is getting increasingly good at second chances, and she means to hang on to this one. She fishes the small white stick out from where it’s worked itself between the seat cushions, and takes a good look at it. The bin in the bathroom contains two separate kits she assumed were false positives.

 

            Claudia takes a deep breath and opens her eyes to the facts, the same way she did when Liz appeared, the same way she did when Nick died. She holds her breath, and lets it out slowly. This is fine: she can deal with this. Considering the wedding is in only two months and she can’t be more than a few weeks along, she won’t be showing at her wedding, and her dress will probably still fit. And besides – they’ve talked about kids, and concluded that they want them.

 

            So this one is a little ahead of schedule, so what? It obviously takes after her. Claudia’s always been a little early for everything, too. 

 

            “You look pensive,” Tom remarks, which means that he’s done that tremendously creepy thing where he successfully sneaks up on her without so much as a whisper of warning.

 

            Claudia drops her book, and also the stick. “I am.”

 

            He crosses the room to her and leans against the arm of the chair, sliding an arm around her shoulders and kissing her temple. “All right?”

 

            “Yes.” Claudia moves into his warmth. “Is Finn all right?”

 

            “Finn is fine. Finn’s dignity and their next-door-neighbours’ cat, never mind Matt’s sense of humour, are not fine.”

 

            Claudia can’t help laughing. Finn is very sweet, and also a complete moron.

 

            “Temple, Abby and Hart were present,” Ryan adds, fingers running idly through her hair. “Just dropped in to say hello to Ross, then wound up making use of the fire extinguisher, as they do.”

 

            “These things happen.”

 

            “Mm.”

 

            There’s a long moment of silence. Tom’s eyes are on the floor, where her book and stick fell, and are now lying in plain sight.

 

            He clears his throat. “Is this why you’ve been chucking up in the mornings?”

 

            Claudia smiles, weaves her fingers into his, and takes their second chance. “If it’s a girl, we’re calling her Elizabeth.”


End file.
